There are many situations where people need to expose their hands to potentially hazardous materials including microorganisms, chemicals, etc., in connection with their work. A few examples of workers who manually encounter biohazards in their jobs include restaurant workers, food processors in meat and poultry plants, health care professionals such as physicians, nurses, emergency medical technicians, police, prison guards, fire fighters, mechanics, etc. In the food service and processing industries, workers' hands frequently contact pathogenic organisms which can be dangerous to the worker or to the recipients of the processed food. In the past several years the public has been especially aware of this problem with respect to the handling of meat and poultry due to severe illness caused by the bacteria E. coli and Salmonella.
Workers' hands also come into contact with hazardous chemicals such as commercial solvents and petrochemicals which may damage the worker's skin and/or be absorbed through the skin possibly carrying other hazardous solutes and causing internal toxicity.
In coming up with a strategy for protecting people from manually encountered biohazards in the workplace, it is important to consider the need to protect the worker as well as the need to protect the consumer. For example, the most common approach for protecting a worker's hands from biohazardous organisms or chemicals is to wear gloves. However, even if a glove material is capable of acting as a complete barrier protecting the worker's hands, the gloves do not prevent carryover (cross contamination) of hazardous materials from one material to another. A worker wearing gloves may work with hamburger one minute and make a salad minutes later without changing gloves. This may result in carryover or cross-contamination of a hazardous substance or pathogen from one food to another. Accordingly, even if gloves protect the worker's skin, they do not adequately protect others who may be injured from carryover of hazardous materials in the workplace.
Another problem with gloves is that they reduce the worker's dexterity. This causes some workers not to wear gloves even in situations where there are dangerous chemicals or pathogens in the work environment. For example, machinists and mechanics frequently have to manipulate devices in small spaces or compartments where solvents and petrochemicals are present. The worker may not wear gloves in these situations because to do so would compromise the worker's agility or dexterity, thus slowing down or preventing the worker from carrying out his work. Gloves also significantly limit or prevent the worker from using his sense of touch which may be essential to the activity.
Accordingly, an important object of the present invention is to provide an alternative to wearing gloves which protects the user's hands from biohazardous materials while also preventing cross contamination.
A further object of the invention is to provide a lotion for use on hands which is capable of broad spectrum bactericidal and antiviral activity within seconds of contact. The lotion should maintain its anti-microbial efficacy for at least several hours after application to the skin.
Another important object of the invention is to provide a polymer-based barrier on the skin which resists being washed-off and which prevents absorption through the skin of hazardous chemicals and commercial solvents.
Another goal of the invention is for the lotion's antibacterial and barrier functions to be relatively insensitive to the pH of the hazardous material.
Still another object is for the lotion to be nontoxic to humans.
The lotion should have a useful shelf-life of at least about two years. During that time the solution/emulsion should remain homogenous without any precipitation or separation of phases. The lotion's anti-microbial efficacy must also be maintained during the shelf-life period.